


who are you, in the dark?

by pasdecoeur



Series: batlantern works [5]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:53:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27176822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasdecoeur/pseuds/pasdecoeur
Summary: This fic was mostly an excuse for me to smush together my three favourite tropes in DC fics — the League discovering yet another one of Bruce Wayne's astonishingly sexy photoshoots and collectively losing their goddamn minds, steamy locker room sex, and Bruce being forced to deal with his crippling fear of intimacy because he's sort of gone and fallen desperately in love with Hal Jordan.So it's a little cracky, and a little angsty, and a lot smutty, but I think I managed to make it all work. 😌💖
Relationships: Hal Jordan/Bruce Wayne
Series: batlantern works [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1270748
Comments: 18
Kudos: 278





	who are you, in the dark?

“It’s called the _what,”_ Carter asked, trying not to laugh.

“Who Would You Rather: Superheroes versus Millionaires,” Barry read out loud. “It’s a calender, you know, for one of those kids’ cancer research charity things? Wow, these photos came out dope, huh? Look,” he scrolled down to March, before Bruce grabbed the remote from him, “they even got my good side!”

July and August featured Superman and Wonder Woman, for obvious reasons — except Clark was still having a fit about the millionaire — or, well, _billionaire_ — they’d chosen to feature versus Superman.

“Luthor,” he hissed irritably, at the screen, when Bruce pulled it up. “Fucking— Lex _Luthor,_ those goddamn bastards.” Some of the younger League members were starting to look a little alarmed; poor Kon El just looked like he wanted to die. 

“Are you mad because he’s evil,” Dinah asked, grinning, “or because he’s giving you some serious competition?” 

Sometimes Bruce wondered how the hell someone as reasonable and… _adult_ as Canary had ended up with an idiot adrenaline junkie like Ollie Queen, and then she’d say something like that, with a twinkle in her eye and an evil smirk, and Bruce would think, _‘Oh, right. That’s why.’_

“No he _isn’t—_ I look _so_ much—” Clark was sputtering incoherently, trying to figure out how to say he looked better than Lex without coming off sounding like a complete asshole. Bruce wished him luck, and moved on to the next slide.

In fairness, Lex _was_ sitting at the edge of a pale, white chaise longue, feet firmly apart, shoulders haunched, elbows balanced on his knees, a wry curve to his thin mouth. There was a bank of windows behind him, floor-to-ceiling, a bright, pale-blue Metropolis morning forming the backdrop to his…. admittedly goddamn gorgeous body: pale, unblemished skin, rippling musculature, the kind of abs that took a personal trainer and a dietician and a _very_ aggressive sparring partner—nice work, Mercy—and only a pair of tight, dark briefs to obscure the rest of the view. 

That was tough competition for _anyone—_ even, quite frankly, Superman.

February had featured Green Arrow vs. Oliver Queen, which meant _he_ was going to be insufferable for at _least_ a month, and Supergirl had been featured against _Lana_ Luthor for May, which… 

Well, Kara had blushed furiously, and then refused to talk about it.

So that was interesting.

“Hey, where’s the Green Lantern month?” Hal asked. Bruce promptly forwarded to September, biting back a grin.

“Hey, wow!” Jessica exclaimed happily. “They got a good shot!”

They _had_ gotten a good shot—of _her_. 

Hal narrowed his eyes at Bruce. “That’s the only GL month?”

Bruce shrugged, in a move deliberately calculated to piss Hal off just a little more. “Yes.”

“Hang the fuck on,” Hal growled, “are you telling me the _kid_ got her own goddamn month, and _I_ didn’t— Okay, this is bullshit. Where’s my beauty shot.”

“Aw, Hal,” Jessica crooned, “I still think you’re pretty.”

“I **_am_** , damn it,” Hal muttered, glaring mulishly at the screen. Carol Ferris was featured against Jessica, in a bustier, thigh-highs and stilettos that could kill a man. “I’m _very_ pretty.”

Bruce rolled his eyes.

“What about you, boss?” Jessica asked, turning to Bruce. Her eyes were twinkling. Jesus, she really _was_ a Green Lantern— not an ounce of fear in this one. “No way they missed out on _you_.”

“What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean,” Hal grumbled, cheek on his fist, staring at the screen like someone had come into his house and murdered his dog.

Bruce scrolled down to December, with a deep sense of foreboding. Might as well get this over with.

December was Batman. Versus Bruce Wayne. 

You could choke on the irony, really. 

The photo they’d gotten of Batman had been during a fight, one arm still extended high up, still holding onto the grapple gun, cape flaring high around his shoulders, one knee raised up in a gravity-assisted kick to knock out the Villain of the Week’s demonic, mind-controlled hive army. But the League was used to that, was used to Batman’s ugly, ferocious battle-scowl, used to his barely-restrained violence, insofar as you could get used to something like that.

What they _weren’t_ used to was… 

Was Bruce Wayne, on the other half of the screen, sprawled on dark silk sheets, his bare chest slick and gleaming with a light sheen of oil. 

Batman’s photo was nearly in monochrome; as if to compensate, Bruce’s photo seemed almost oversaturated with color—the golden, sun-warmed glow of his skin, the bright blue of his eyes, the way his lips seemed bruised, a soft kiss-bitten pink. His eyes were hooded at the screen, one arm tucked behind his head, bulging obscenely with muscle, a vein popping under his skin, the other hand splayed carelessly over his abs.

A wine-red sheet was draped artistically over his hips, coming in from the right, covering most of his thigh and keeping the calendar’s rating at a precarious PG-15—but that was about it. The line of his chest, tapering into tightly-muscled thighs on the left was perfectly unobscured—he wasn’t wearing a goddamn thing under that sheet, and the look in his eyes: hooded, dark, a faint smirk, hair tousled and soft… 

Jesus, it was that look that invited you closer, dragged you in, took you prisoner, held you _down._

The room was perfectly, utterly silent.

“Holy shit,” Hal mumbled softly. “Sorry, but who the fuck would ever choose Batman over _that?”_

Clark frowned. “You _know_ they’re the same person, right?” but Wonder Woman, without taking her eyes off the screen— _no one_ had taken their eyes off the screen— waved Clark off, and said, “No, no, he’s making a very good point.”

Oliver, Dinah and Shayera nodded in complete agreement. 

Traitors.

* * *

Bruce could feel the beginnings of a migraine starting the pulse behind his eyes by the time his monitor duty shift wrapped up. 

Being paired off with J’onn for shift had never seemed like more of a blessing—the Martian didn’t give a single, solitary fuck about Bruce Wayne’s almost-naked photoshoot, and actually seemed more interested in the fact that the Make A Wish foundation was going to be _rolling_ in dough, after the calendar went on sale.

Unlike the _entire_ rest of the League, apparently.

Christ. You thought you knew people.

Sparring in the simulator didn’t help, nor did trying to work on the heat-shielding upgrades on the Watchtower, and by the time Bruce went to the showers, with the vague notion of going home and checking in on Damian’s homework and maybe having a quiet cup of tea with Alfred, his mood was blacker than Gotham during a thunderstorm.

So of course Hal was the only other person in the locker room, a towel riding low on his hips, water dripping in lazy trails down his chest. Of course he was.

And of course he perked up the moment Bruce walked in. Bruce shoved his cowl down, and turned to his locker, hunting down a change of clothes. 

“Hey, _boss_.”

“Jordan.”

Anybody else would’ve seen Bruce wasn’t feeling chatty, and would’ve left it there.

Anybody _else,_ but not Hal, never Hal. Fucking Lanterns.

“So, about the calendar—”

“—I didn’t actually have any say in the heroes they picked, Jordan,” Bruce cut in, sharply, anticipating the question, “the only reason they gave me access to the complete issue is because Wayne Enterprises is rumored to have ties to Batman and the Justice League at large, and they figured it was only polite that we received a heads-up about the photos.”

“Well,” Hal shrugged, and the towel slipped a quarter inch down his hips. Bruce kept his gaze on Hal’s warm, brown eyes, but his peripheral vision was—fuck, was having a field day, let’s be honest. His throat was too dry to swallow, even. “They raise money for little kids with cancer, of course they’re _polite._ ”

Bruce snorted, unsnapping the cape and the belt, tugging off the gauntlets one by one. “You’d be surprised.”

“I’m sure,” Hal replied. He fell quiet then, watching Bruce without saying a word. It felt strangely, horribly intimate, Hal’s clever, quiet eyes on him as he worked the catches on the suit, disassembling its parts from his body, until all he was wearing was the fine, skin-tight, titanium mesh undersuit. 

Hal’s eyebrows rose up just a little when the top half came off, revealing his body, the palette of yellow-green bruising on his ribs from last week, the claw marks ripping across one shoulder, bullet-holes and knife-scars, a tapestry of pain and horror sewn onto flesh. 

“Didn’t see that in the photoshoot,” Hal said idly, tipping his chin towards Bruce. His eyes were dragging slowly down Bruce’s body, and Bruce waited until their eyes met to reply.

“Synthetic skin grafts,” he said. “Oliver was wearing some too, for his civilian photos.”

“Sounds uncomfortable.”

Bruce shrugged. Hal didn’t seem in any rush to end this conversation. He also didn’t seem in any rush to put on some clothes, and that was… not helping Bruce’s concentration. It also meant there wasn’t a fucking chance in hell he was going to take off his pants in front of Hal.

“You get used to it,” he replied.

“Come up often, does it, wearing skin grafts?”

“Whenever I’m about to show any skin in public.”

“From what TMZ reports, Bruce Wayne shows skin pretty goddamn often.” Hal was smirking. Smirking, and naked, and wet—which God had Bruce pissed off so badly, for fuck’s sake.

“It feels like skin too, mostly. Just means events have to be wrapped up a little quicker.”

Hal’s eyes dropped down again. He didn’t look at Bruce the way other people did—when they looked at Batman’s ravaged, ugly body, Bruce knew they looked furtively, sneaking glances they thought he didn’t notice, equal parts fascinated and horrified. Hal looked like he was mapping a path for his tongue. “That’s a shame,” he murmured. “Bruce Wayne doesn’t really get to have a lot of fun, does he?”

“That’s the _second_ time you’ve—Do you have some kind of cognitive impairment the League needs to know about? Stop referring to me in the third person. _I’m_ Bruce Wayne.”  
  


Hal continued to smile, that completely psychotic little smile that gave nothing away. “No, you’re not. You’re not the guy in that photo—that’s just another mask, isn’t it? That’s part of the job, that’s just more smoke and mirrors.”

Bruce cocked his head to the side, considering. “You’re not wrong. Most people miss that, that really, I’m—”

And Hal burst out laughing. “Don’t,” he gasped, “oh god, don’t say it, _please._ ”

Bruce frowned. 

“You’re not _Bruce Wayne_ , and _you_ are **_not_** _Batman._ Being Batman’s part of the job, the mission, just like being the Green Lantern is for me. It’s a job. Our jobs are more vital to us, sure, but it’s still a job.” Hal was walking forward now, and Bruce held his ground firmly.

Bruce held his ground, mostly because he had forgotten how to walk, and because Hal stopped when they were inches apart, when Bruce could smell the faint ocean-breeze scent of his shampoo, could feel the heat of Hal’s body against his skin. His hand came up, traced the pucker of an old, poorly-stitched knife-wound, one that Bruce had picked up in his early days. HIs thumb drifted across the scar tissue, and the feeling there was muted, less visceral, but it still shocked, still made his heartbeat stutter and his adrenaline jolt, made his blood pool low, made his cock stir in the tight confines of the cup. “This,” Hal said, softly, eyes warm and dark, his voice smoky-quiet, “who you are when you take off the suit… This is you. This is the only real part of you.” His hand came up, flattened over his chest, along his neck, and Bruce fought the urge to cat into that broad, firm touch, fought not to close his eyes when Hal curved his palm around his jaw, and stroked the skin just beneath his mouth. His pulse was hammering—and every time Hal did that, stroked his skin like that, it was… _doing_ things, altering reality, rearranging the shape of his universe, parching his throat and making his hands shake. Wildly, Bruce wondered if he could come, just from this, just from this slow steady stroke, from the sight of Hal’s beautiful body so close to his, from the sound of his voice, whispering in his ear. 

“Batman’s the job, and Bruce Wayne’s the mask,” Hal said, “but neither of those guys hold a candle to… to the man whom I met that day in Metropolis. That guy, who took off his cowl in the middle of a firefight, and told me to fight for someone other than myself, that’s the guy I’ve always—” and for a brief second, the movement of his thumb faltered, jerked, and in that second Bruce moved, grasped Hal by the back of his neck, cushioned the back of his head while pushing him hard against the lockers, locking their mouths together between one breath and the next, just to _stop_ him, just to stop him from _saying_ those things, but then Bruce realized kissing was worse. 

Worse. 

Better. 

Better because kissing Hal was like… nothing he’d known. Like diving into a sea at storm and finding peace, like heat and wildfire and the faint taste of salt, and Hal was groaning, making this quiet vibration of sound in his throat, and Bruce kissed him there, kissed the tremor in his skin, felt the towel slip and fall to the ground, and then Hal was naked, naked under his hands, hot and firm, his cock thickening, jutting upwards, flushed and red, and he was _looking_ at Bruce, a breathless laugh on his lips before he kissed Bruce again, kissed his jaw and the corner of his mouth, clutched at his arms, at the warm small of his back, dug his fingers into Bruce’s ass, and tugged impatiently at the waistband, pushing it down until Bruce helped him shuck it off, but he was saying, “Easy, easy, come on, B, we got time, sweetheart,” and, “Shit, did we—we need to lock the goddamn door,” and, “Oh fuck, look at that, you hard for me, baby?” soft nonsense words that were liquefying his brain—

—Which was the reason, Bruce would later give, for pulling away and saying, in the coldest voice he could manage, “We’re not doing this again.” 

Hal went still against him, and Bruce could still feel him, hard against his cock, the thunder of his heartbeat against his ribs. “Is that right,” Hal murmured, nostrils flared, nails digging into Bruce’s waist. His eyes were cold now, flinty, and Bruce was faintly aware that if Hal pressed any harder, he would draw blood. But that made his cock twitch, made his hips catch, and when Hal ground them together, he had to turn his face aside, force himself to breathe. “We’re never going to do this again, is that what you think,” Hal whispered, grabbing his jaw with one angry hand, turning Bruce to face him, biting at his lip before sealing their mouth together again, tongues meeting in furious wet slide, cocks rutting together hungrily. 

Bruce buried his face in the warm, hard curve of Hal’s neck, found silk-hot skin to kiss, the place that made Hal’s cock stiffen and spurt against his, found the perfect way to grip their cocks together, jerk them both, and Hal tilted his chin down, found Bruce’s mouth, and kissed him and kissed him, threading fingers into his hair, hitched an ankle around his calf, until Bruce buckled, sank into him, crowding him against the cold metal of the lockers, until the hand on their cocks was blurring with how fast Bruce was moving, until Bruce stiffened and whispered Hal’s name, a soft, shocked whisper, so hoarse and wrecked that Hal felt something crack open in his chest, felt warmth shudder in his bones, and he was coming too, great, wracking waves of come, painting Bruce’s fist, and his cock, and his thighs, the smell of it like a humid monsoon, breathing sharp and hard through his nose, clutching Bruce close.

“Hal,” Bruce whispered again, pleading, and Hal breathed a hard, ugly laugh, dropping his head back hard against the lockers. 

“Never gonna happen again,” he repeated. “Yeah, I heard you.” Hal looked him in the eye, saw those beautiful, shocked eyes, saw his bruised, red mouth, the sheen of sweat making him glow. Hal’s heartbeat was still thundering. There was a tremor in his knees, a burn behind his eyes, a festering iciness in the region in his ribs. He wanted to hit something. Bruce. Something.

“This can’t—We can’t,” Bruce said, but he wasn’t stepping away, was he? He was still there, still clutching Hal close like he didn’t know how to leave. “The League must come first, fraternizing amongst members—”

“Ollie and Dinah,” Hal said, but this was not a battle that could be won with words. This wasn’t something you could change minds on by force of articulation. “Clark and Diana. Katar and Shayera.”

“I can’t—I can only advise them. I have never—It’s not.”

“Yeah.” Hal closed his eyes. Bruce was a little taller than him, and that was—that made it so that when he sighed and dropped his head forward, it tucked perfectly against his clavicle. “Yeah,” he mumbled against taut, silken skin. “I know.”

They were quiet for a while, but Hal had never liked the quiet much, so he said, “It’s just—I don’t know _how._ ”

Bruce stayed quiet, but Hal had a guess about what that silence meant: _I don’t how how we do that either._ He was maybe beginning to figure Bruce out a little.

That, or he’d come so hard, some of his brain still had to come online. It was a 50-50 split either way.

“I think,” Hal continued, lips brushing against Bruce’s skin when he spoke, and he thought maybe they should just have all conversations like this, from now on, naked, after coming their brains out, “I think it would be easier if we could… talk about it, a little more, about how this ‘never again’ business works.”

Bruce pulled away at that, and Hal let him, except that—god, that _hurt,_ that little pull away even though their hips were still slotted against each other’s, soft cocks nestled together, a wet, slick mess that was probably going to be really disgusting soon. 

“Talk about it,” Bruce repeated.

Hal touched him, let his fingertips rest lightly against the high point of his cheekbones, the hinge of his jaw, the soft lobe of his ear. Memorizing him. That’s what he was doing. Memorizing every look on his face, hungrily. He couldn’t stop.

“Yeah,” Hal replied earnestly, nodding, trying not to smile. “You could come over, Zeta over, maybe in the evening, and we’ll get some delivery, do you like Thai? There’s this great Thai place near mine, and we can talk about it, you know. Just talk, I swear. Just talk,” except he was still touching Bruce, rubbing his thumb against the wet, chapped softness of his lips, eyes darkening with every breath.

Bruce wrapped a hand around Hal’s wrist, stilled the motion of his hand. “I don’t think—You think if we—That we won’t—You know we’d end up—Hal.”

“No, see, I did think about that—”

“—did you.”

“Yeah, see, if we’re going to end up, you know, then pretending we can avoid this is pretty stupid right? I mean, it’s an exercise in futility, and you’re an efficient guy, you don’t believe in wasted effort, right, so this is really—I mean, no matter how tomorrow goes, it’s still the best use of our time.”

Bruce was frowning now. “So what you’re saying is… We should fuck, because we’re going to fuck anyway.”

Hal tensed. “Granted, the logic’s a little recursive, but if you—”

And then Bruce started to laugh. 

He—the bastard—

Hal was smiling, he realized, about a second in. He was smiling, and he could _feel_ Bruce’s laugh, feel it vibrating through his chest, like sunlight, or maybe an earthquake, something that could raze the foundations of his earth, and form it anew.

“Or,” Hal suggested, because if you gave an inch, he’d take a mile, he would, Hal was the kid on every field trip who would poke the hornet’s nest and never mind the sting, “or we could shower now, and then go back to my place, and have this discussion, this really important discussion tonight.”

The laugh died. 

“Hal.”

“You think I’m kidding,” Hal said softly, angrily, his words clipped and hard. “You—I’m not. If—If talking’s all we can do,” his throat was so dry, “if that’s all this can be, then that’s. That’s okay. If friends is all you can—allow, then do you think—I’ll take that. I’ll hold on to that for the rest of my life. It’ll be enough.”

“Will it,” Bruce said, and was that fear, was that fear in his eyes, in _Batman’s_ eyes.

“Yes. _Yes,_ Bruce.”

“Until today, it wasn’t. Until today, until now, you wouldn’t have—Any form of a relationship with me would have been abhorrent to you, and now, all of a sudden.”

Hal shut his eyes for a brief second. “Jesus. Bruce. Until today, I didn’t know that any form of a relationship was even on the fucking table.”

Bruce fell quiet, and Hal spoke into the silence. “Come home. Come home with me. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

 _It doesn’t have to mean anything,_ Bruce thought to himself, and wanted to—his ribs were crushing him in, were tightening like iron. _It doesn’t have to mean anything,_ Bruce told himself, and it felt like—like this is what it would always be, this hideous, aching burn of want, that would never resolve. 

“It does,” he said harshly, and then kissed Hal, kissed him the way he should’ve from the start, from the first time in Gotham, when he saw a light in his dark, ugly city, a light as fierce as the sun, and thought, to himself, _beautiful._ “It means—everything.”

Hal kissed back. Hal was laughing, as he kissed back, as he clutched Bruce tighter to himself. 

And then Bruce pulled away, and a fierce, sweet ache throbbed in the region of his heart. Hal’s smile was like the first summer rain, sunlight after a long, winter, the burst of sweetness under his tongue, the dark, rich decadence of want. 

“But first, shower.”

**Author's Note:**

> [this fic is rebloggable here!](https://www.tumblr.com/reblog/632873676511002624/ts3NnmXe)  
> thanks for reading! if you liked it, remember to hit kudos <3  
> for more nonsense, find me on tumblr @pasdecoeur.


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